Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee, , 6:06:03 to 6:10:55
The committee examines whether releasing packages at a 60% minimum service offering contributes to under-utilisation and if 100% funding should be provided from day one.
Topics: Social services, Government spending
Speakers: Senator The Hon Anne Ruston, Mr Greg Pugh, Mr Blair Comley
Um just a few things in response to some of the things that you've all just put on the record. I mean uh you made the comment that people don't usually ramp up um, it takes them a while to ramp up, and it's usually the second quarter that you start seeing sort of a more normal use of utilisation. Well, given that the first quarter they're on an MSO, invariably, it's no wonder they don't ramp up because they actually don't have the money. Um the other um point would be have you taken any consideration into it's almost impossible for the sector to be able to prepare itself for the full operation of somebody's package when you're only providing them with a 60% of the package in many instances for the 10 weeks or so. Um and the other point around the 83 pack thousand packages that you mentioned, Mr. Pugh, that were at least in the 25-26 year. Um you told us that previous estimates that the majority of those, I think it was 93% have been released in the first instance at a minimum service offering. So when you factor in the cost of those 83,000 packages, did you factor in that they were only going to be released on average for 10 weeks at a minimum service offering? I mean, so do does any of these under utilisation that's on your books relate to the fact that people didn't have their full package for a period or time, or is that under utilisation already factored in the fact that you are only providing minimum service offering for new people?
The 83,000 places would have been fully funded and they would have.
To the 100% of there.
Yeah.
So in that 727,000 or 277 million dollars that you referred to one November to the 30th of June. Is any of that saving or under utilisation relate to the 10 weeks on average of minimum service offering for the packages released in that period?
Um I would need to take that specific question on notice. Uh, but my working assumption would that it would be a contributing factor, but I will take that on notice, Senator.
You don't know the answer to that.
Um not the top of my head, no.
You've got 83,000 packages released at 93% of them or thereabouts at 60%. That is a lot of money, which in effect could probably equate.
I mean, I I don't know, somebody could probably the 93%, Senator was evidence that I gave at the 4th of December Senate estimates here in 2025, and that will be related to the first five weeks of the operation of the program. And so um, you took on notice before the lunch break, what level of what the amount of uh places that had been released, the percentage of those that have been released uh as interim. Uh and so we will provide the answer to that alongside this question around that that you've just put on uh put to me uh on notice.
Yeah. Given that you're um underspending by 727 million, has it occurred, or is it has it been considered that maybe you don't need to be releasing packages at 60 per cent? Maybe you could be releasing them at 100 per cent if if you you don't know whether the the money's in that 727 million, um but there's 727 million dollars of funding that you were budgeting to have spent in that period of time that hasn't been spent. So my question is is there any consideration, should there be any consideration as to um actually providing people with 100% of their packages from day one?
So Minister, that that is a ultimate matter of government. But in the in the short answer is yes that what we do is we need to estimate what will actually be spent in a year, which is also related to expected utilisation, which then feeds into what proportion of packages need to be provided on interim basis versus uh a minimum service offering versus the full service offering. So you're so that is why we're particularly interested in understanding the sort of whether it's transitional issue to do us with utilisation or is a long-term issue.
Okay, so you don't at this stage have any idea of what kind of permanency is likely to be invested in these.
Exactly those factors so that we can work out the balance of minimum service offerings versus full service offering.